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"Welcome to WiseWomenUnite.com -- When adult children marry and leave home, life can sometimes get more complex instead of simpler. Being a mother-in-law or daughter-in-law can be tough. How do we extend love and support to our mothers-in-law, adult children, daughters-in-law, sons-in-law, and grandchildren without interfering? What do we do when there are communication problems? How can we ask for help when we need it without being a burden? And how do our family members feel about these issues? We invite you to join our free forum, read some posts... and when you're ready...share your challenges and wisdom."

I have been visiting this site for a while now reading all the posts. Its a great site to help people going through problems and provide support at a very difficult time in their lives.

My situation is that i have divorced my wife. when we met We fell in love and i hope that i would be able to give her everything she would want and more. unfortunately like a lot of the DIL's you all talk about there was a specific was she wanted her married life to be and it did not include my FOO no matter how much they tried. They all wanted to love her and be a part of her life. They left us to it as they realised she did not see them as being part of her life. Not wanting them to come round our place. Not wanting to go there and when i forced them to come to my house she would act in a way to ensure they knew she did not want them there.

i looked to her parents for support and got nothing. they wanted me to do whatever she wanted and justified her behaviour.

This broke my heart. So many guys out there accept this as the norm. I honestly felt like i was betraying people i loved by letting this go on. I loved her and i loved them. I had to choose. i was forced to.

If a person really loved me surely they would not put me in that position. My FOO had cut me loose as they did not want me to choose as they believed that she should be the priority.

I was only married for 4 years and am quite successful professionally. I work in a fortune 500 company and lead a large team of strong individuals. The reason i am stating this is that as i think of this i realise in my own home i could not be the man of the house. How crazy is that. the smallest decisions needed her approval. i got more respect from people twice my age and a lot more powerful at work than i did in my own home where i had to get approval before inviting anyone round. All the things she liked about me are what she wanted to change afterwards.

But this caused resentment to build up between me and my wife. i guess this generation is very self centred. Being this way can only bring more misery.

Anyway the reason i am posting is to share my story and also say that if you all want a guys perspective i am here. I don't know how much i can help but i would like to.

I often speak to my parents about how the young women of this generation seriously lack respect that previous generations maintained. i get angry. not at these DIL's but at their parents for raising them in such a way that they have this sense of entitlement and my way or the highway attitude.

What goes around comes around and i am sure that they would not wish to have DIL's like the daughters they have raised.

Ladies one quick thing after re reading my post i want to make clear that i am not generalising against all DIL's. Believe me the reason i finished it was that looking around at my friends who were married i could see that a lot are not like this and that is when i realised i should not have to accept this type of treatment. I have seen a fair share of nutty MIL's as well and my ex-MIL was unfortunately neurotic. I hold her heavily accountable for giving my ex-wife the bad characteristics she had and developed over time. My ex-MIL totally dominated and destroyed my ex-FIL with her behaviour and treatment of him (he was a very soft and gentle person). I believe this is what my wife understood married life to be like. She didn't know any better i guess even though i tried to make her understand.

You just described our ex-DIL and I hope, the feelings our son has for his family. Our son was married for over a decade and has two children. Two years ago (almost three now), she left our son and both children. I never knew why (some said it was another "man" but I don't think so). She was not only very abusive to her husband and children, but also to her husband's family, friends and neighbours. Perhaps even to her own relatives and friends - don't know.

Things are better now but there still is a lot of hurt on our side due to the treatment of "us" by our son. One of the children has "sided" with the mother even though the mother rarely is involved. It is better - but never will we regain that place of comfort and acceptance that was ours prior to her being in our lives. How one selfish person can wreak so much chaos and toxicity is still a mystery to me. What a shame! Thanks for posting ...

I guess me and my ex-wife are lucky that children involved. She has a good heart and deep down i think she knew something wasn't right with us hence reluctance on both are parts to have children. i think every situation is unique even though sometimes the overall nature of the people involved can be similar.

i think in this "me" generation the focus on oneself often leads to these types of situations. I believe over time there hasn't really been a change in attitude in the way men are raised by their families but a lot of women have much stronger attitudes now than previous generations. a sort of "no one can tell me what to do" attitude. So in effect the balance in a relationship nowadays slants towards the women ruling the house. Obviously this is not the case all the time but i see a sort of trend along these lines. This is why i see so many guys just going with the flow. but let me tell you all this. All guys have a line with a limit on what they will accept and once it is crossed it can be very difficult to regain that trust. My folks were more like my friends than my parents and i suppose it led to jealousy from my wife as her relationship with her parents was not like this.

i guess she felt threatened by it when all i wanted was for them and her to be friends too. anything positive that she did would be grabbed and cherished with us all believing that things would now be different.

the truth is that we cannot change people. they must do it themselves, but that rarely happens. i used to treat my inlaws no different to my parents. But when i realised this would never be reciprocated by my wife all i wanted was to get even. that was wrong to do, i should have been a bigger man but i wanted to let her know the pain i was feeling so i stopped bothering with her folks. It didn't make a difference as her folks had their own DS and DIL living with them. double standards.

i guess what a lot of people are going through on this site is the pain of letting go of family in the knowledge that a lot of the time they really haven't done anything wrong to have to go through this. I also believe that DILS cannot be held fully accountable. Us men need to accept our responsibilities to. Yes we have responsibilities our wives but they do not include cutting of family for the sake of pleasing the wife. i do understand there are dysfunctional families out there that we need to keep a distance from but the majority of the time it is not the case.

HTH, thanks very much for coming here and posting your story. I knew that this place is powerfully cathartic but seeing a DS write those words above gave me an unexpected relief, like I'd been absolved. I hope you'll stick around.

Indeed i shall. If only to shed a guys perspective on things. Not to say that i speak for all men but i think to have a great many perspectives will help any person posting; be it a MIL or a DIL. Obviously it is a site for women to share stories but this site and its posts have helped me a lot as i realised i was not crazy in thinking what i was experiencing in my relationship was wrong. So i feel if there is something i can give in return for the advice i received from the posts then i would like to help.

the last year was the worst of my life in terms of accepting the road i had to walk down (divorce). it wasn't the outcome either of us had wanted but sometimes things are not meant to be. This site helped me understand that what i was asking for was not wrong and that i should not feel guilty asking for it as a husband.

You, know, it is probably in a broader sense, an individuals perspective that you offer. We have seen many relationships where the wife didn't get to make a single decision. Culturally, that is changing but when the pendulum swings so far in the opposite direction, more damage can occur. Marriage requires a shift in loyalties. We make an "outsider" our priority. Many of us have to learn new skills to find balance, while others thrive on imbalance. Perhaps the ingredient that is missing is self respect. You have a strong sense of self. On the surface, I looks like your wife did, as well...yet she may have lacked that very thing and been unable or unwilling to negotiate.

We have seen imbalance on this site in different dynamics...for instance, a MIL who runs rampant over a DIL. She ruled the son in his childhood home and then just extended her rule. In other circumstance, sons were not dominated in any way but treated fairly as kids and just have no idea how to cope with an overnight despot. A shift in family dynamics is a place were insecurities can become glaring: prior control can be threatened or control that never existed can appear to be available.

What we have seen here is that if is often the female, whether DIL or MIL, that creates the issues. Guys oftens will put up with almost anything for some degree of peace in the home. Some because they were dominated by their own mothers and some because they just don't have the stomach for conflict and the merry go round it brings. What you did was say, "no." It cost you your marriage which must have been exceedingly painful but/and at the same time, it sounds like your wife morphed into someone you didn't even know.

Please think about creating a Web-forum for men who are thrashing around alone in this untenable, emotional climate and who would not consider coming here. Like the women here, they may think they are the only ones instead of realizing they belong to a huge group. I have met many on my other Website which offers a question and answer venue: www.MomResponds.com . This forum was created by my son, Kirk VandenBerghe, at www.positiveprojections.com/ Many of us here would gladly refer our sons to a site that offered the opportunity to work through, in an anonymous cyber-community climate, what you have had to face.

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Dalai Lama

farrelly80

Hi thereWelcome to WWUcan I ask a question?How long into your marriage did you finally decide to make the break? My son is estranged from me because of his partner, he has had no contact with myself (his mum) his father, brother or any members of our large family.We dont see our GKs because she wont allow it but he has sided with her.I am trying to understand what is going on in his head for him to be able to live like this.We had a loving relationship with him throughout his life until last year.I would appreciate your perspectiveFarrelly

August

Quote from: heretohelp on January 14, 2012, 07:24:25 ami think in this "me" generation the focus on oneself often leads to these types of situations. I believe over time there hasn't really been a change in attitude in the way men are raised by their families but a lot of women have much stronger attitudes now than previous generations. a sort of "no one can tell me what to do" attitude.

I most certainly have the attitude that I do not have to accept disrespect or poor treatment or dressing down from ANYONE. I am a grown woman and I neither desire nor need anyone in my personal life telling me what to do. That includes my husband, his parents, and my parents. I have no problem making decisions WITH my husband. I have no problems making decisions with the feelings of other in mind, but that does not mean that I'm typically going to do something I really don't want to do. Don't like it? I don't care. Obviously my dh doesn't mind terribly as we've been together approaching 25 years.

I also think there HAS been a change in the way many men are raised in their families. Men are now also expected to just as much as women in the home and they are expected to parent equally. My sons aren't growing up thinking anything is "women's work" or "men's work".

So in effect the balance in a relationship nowadays slants towards the women ruling the house. Obviously this is not the case all the time but i see a sort of trend along these lines.

Funny...I see a trend in people making decisions together...but the women getting blamed for whatever that decision is as ils tend to think "my son wouldn't possibly make that decision, it has to be HER.

This is why i see so many guys just going with the flow. but let me tell you all this. All guys have a line with a limit on what they will accept and once it is crossed it can be very difficult to regain that trust.

Everybody has that line. It isn't unique to men. And, I can tell you as someone who once had their husband throw them under the bus in a major way when his parents EPICLY screwed up and he chose to defend him, that the betrayal was so great that I nearly divorced him over it. I will never forget what he did. I no longer trust him 100% completely when it comes to his parents, and I never will. He was willing for them to treat me like garbage and wanted me to play that. Nope. Not a chance.

My folks were more like my friends than my parents and i suppose it led to jealousy from my wife as her relationship with her parents was not like this.

Ok. Friends. So do you friends normally have any decision making power in your marriage or with your kids or how things work in your home with your wife? No? Well, neither should your parents, friends or not.

i guess she felt threatened by it when all i wanted was for them and her to be friends too.

Why is it so hard to believe that someone, even your spouse, wouldn't want to be friends with your parents? (I'm asking this as a general question.) I have never had an expectation that my husband and my parents would be friends. NEVER. Why would I do that? He's an adult and he picks his own friends. I thought I was friends with my inlaws for well over a decade. Turns out I wasn't. So, when they did what they did...I treated them as I would a friend who would have done such a thing with me. I cut them out.

anything positive that she did would be grabbed and cherished with us all believing that things would now be different.

The very best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. Obviously not 100% of the time, but generally speaking.

the truth is that we cannot change people. they must do it themselves, but that rarely happens.

True.

i used to treat my inlaws no different to my parents. But when i realised this would never be reciprocated by my wife all i wanted was to get even. that was wrong to do, i should have been a bigger man but i wanted to let her know the pain i was feeling so i stopped bothering with her folks.

I stopped having anything to do with my husbands parents when they screwed us over in a major way. That isn't what hurts him. What hurt him was what his parents did. I can't make up for that...and even if I could, I don't think I would. I'm actually quite happy that he now has an idea of what they're like and how they will put everyone in the world--even drug addled, felonious strangers, over us.

It didn't make a difference as her folks had their own DS and DIL living with them. double standards.

i guess what a lot of people are going through on this site is the pain of letting go of family in the knowledge that a lot of the time they really haven't done anything wrong to have to go through this. I also believe that DILS cannot be held fully accountable. Us men need to accept our responsibilities to. Yes we have responsibilities our wives but they do not include cutting of family for the sake of pleasing the wife.

Fine...just stay off your spouses back when they don't want to have anything to do with your family. As long as you get to see them...why force your spouse to interact with them?

i do understand there are dysfunctional families out there that we need to keep a distance from but the majority of the time it is not the case.

You knwo less dysfunctional families than I do. In my personal and professional life...I don't know one person who has shut out or cut off family that it wasn't well deserved.